Gray
by RedeemedByFire
Summary: Never send to know for whom the bell tolls... A ONESHOT, L's perspective.


_A/N: Well. This is my first from L's perspective. As it may come to your attention, I am writing character perspective rather than plot – I need to come to terms with the characters before I can actually write for them. They disturb me far too much to dive straight in. As always, Death Note belongs to it's talented creators, and I believe I could not have endured well enough to write it myself._

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L sat in his usual manner, thumb to his lips. It was false dawn, black being consumed by light pastel colors, pure gray light enveloping him as the sun crept towards the world outside. He hadn't slept – of course not. It had gotten to the point where Light had demanded that he take a laptop into the room they were forced to share, claiming "Even if you do not wish to maintain your concentration and sanity by wishing to get a good night's sleep, at least allow me to, Ryuzaki."

L had found this claim highly unjust – given that Light-kun was Kira.

Sneaking a glance to the side through an ebbing mass of black hair, L sighed -genuinely sighed – with relief. Light was still asleep, L had finished his latest report, and none of the rest of the team were invading his comfort zone. Yet. L rolled his shoulders, feeling tension break through his muscles like a wave on some furious ocean, tearing those who dared ventured there apart with the sheer pressure of it's internal motion.

Surprised, it was as if the storm had been laid to rest; L could... relax.

As soon as the idea occurred to him a thousand thoughts and a million memories assaulted him, clamoring like small children for his time and attention, overwhelming him with concepts, plans, scenarios...

And for the first time since the Kira case began, L forced them to stop.

He did not want to think. He did not want to hear his mind whine in protest after it's initial silent shock, just as his successors would have done, had he rebuffed them so. He did not want to be chained to a dormant cancer on the bed, a lethal disease that was waiting to kill him, looking for any weakness, a gray poison seeping through his system and infecting all things alive and just, all under a cover of perfect normalcy.

L knew there was nothing healthy about being in close contact with Light Yagami.

And for the first time since the Kira care began, he did not want to be.

Let someone else be his watchdog. Let someone else throw away their lives to an egotistical psychopath with a childish, mundane and inhumane sense of justice that so perverted the natural order of good and evil that the tools it relied on where not of nature nor of man, but of a different world entirely. A world so twisted and black and empty that it's inhabitants lived only out of habit, and were themselves convinced of a lack of purpose. A world that had no place in intoxicating his own.

L was sick of it. Sick of the nauseating pressure that stole the color from his mind and the pure sight of his clarity. Sick of the weight that pressed down on him with a glance, a smirk and the most intricate facade the world had ever seen, save for perhaps his own.

It was a deadly chess game, and Light, no, Kira, was by far his greatest opponent. The point where Light ended and Kira began was so much less contrasting than it should have been. Convinced that he had seen Light without Kira, however it was achieved, L knew the difference should have been blinding – Light should have been... well, light. Kira should have been black. The problem lay in that, as the chess game, the pressure, the drug saturated his system, L could only view the walking double-entity as a shade of gray – a perfect medium.

And the problem lay in that the addiction, or disease, the cancer that could not be cut out, was killing him. Justice never seemed like more of nothing than now.

L knew he would die- the gaps in his knowledge of Shinigami were simply too great, and Light would not, could not slip up. For that, L was proud of him. L did consider Light a friend, even if that was the last thing they could ever be. Knowing that pride was evidence only of his sickness, L forced himself to see what he thought was the truth:

L had no friends. But sickness or not, L was proud of Light's intellect; a pedestal was a lonely place to stand, and L had long been afraid of heights.

But fear was irrational, and so he simply out-thought it. A genius was not allowed to be scared.

The sun struggled to rise, as if there was a weight dragging it down too – one that would never permit it to rise again. Or maybe it just wanted to slip back into the night halfway, letting that false-dawn light be the only thing to judge the world it blanketed, a gray quilt over scared children. Just the way it had been for L.

And all of a sudden, L wanted to leave; he wanted to cry, and laugh, and drive away and be human for a while, rather than a genius, shackled to a death he had earned by doing as he thought he should his entire life. He wanted to flee the computer, the case, the city, the chain. The dead weight borne upon his shoulders. Or upon his wrist.

The handcuffs would come off today.

It would be symbolic; the disease was far past terminal now. He simply could not endure the morbid gray circlet binding him to a demise he had fought for but not wanted, chilling him with cold metal, past the welts the cuff occasionally caused, through the veins that ran colorless with venom and down to the bones, tainting the part of his anatomy that would be destroyed last. It was as if the chain that bound him and his adversary performed a trade; gray toxic for L's lifespan.

It certainly felt that way.

But never the less, the chain would go for Light's sake as well. L would prefer if his death was on Kira's conscience, not Light Yagami's. Assuming Kira had a conscience.

A storm broke, inside and out – the sun truly not permitted another ascent. A thunderclap woke Light, but all L could hear were bells.

"Seven thirty... why didn't you wake me, Ryuzaki? The others will be here soon."

The muffled shuffle of material as Light rose clashed with the pained crying of a child, deep within L's mind and the depths of memory. L simply didn't hear him.

"...and I'd like to go over the tape of the Yotsuba interview in case we... Ryuzaki?"

"The handcuffs come off today, Light-kun. As much as I would like to take you with me."

L looked over his shoulder, meeting a hazel gaze. He knew. Kira smiled, Light frowned, and L closed his eyes because nothing mattered. Bells... he was going home.

It was when the rain started that L decided that he wanted to _feel_.

The handcuffs gone, L entered the storm, knowing it would rage on long after he was gone, drenching the world in gray that was exhausting as it was peaceful, as good as it was bad, but never truly either. Simply staring at falling water, he wondered what he would leave behind.

L thought of his successors, unconsciously in order. Near. So introverted that he would not only take no uncalculated risks, but he would actually perform no act that was not necessitated by circumstance. Secure enough in his mind to out think most adversaries without having to act, and young enough to convince himself that he needed no one. He, unlike L, would never consider thinking of Light Yagami as a friend; today would be enough to ensure that. He may have dressed in white, and it may emanate from him, but his exclusion of the human race, despite his wish to dictate the rights and wrongs of it's morality place him in a different shade; something darker than white.

That train of thinking literally bled into thoughts of Mello. If Near could envision any scenario, Mello could adapt to any one, often creating entirely new ones, previously impossible, in the process. The benefit of throwing oneself into the fray, was that no one could predict one's moves. In a chess game, that could be invaluable. Mello may have even been talented, or foolish enough with this trait that in the real world he could surpass Near, but the intuition that accompanied it opened up an entire world of hurt that Near, and L himself, could largely ignore. If Near ridiculed Mello's faith, it was most likely because he viewed it as a dependence.

In turn, L respected faith, even if it was something he himself could never partake of. To L it was evidence of Mello's conscience, that his pride was not everything, and that the boy had a deeper element – even if it was that he could admit to himself he was vulnerable enough to _need_ a dependence.. Proof that he too was in the gray. The fact that Mello had no doubt acknowledged his own place in Damnation reminded L of the chain he had worn only that morning. Inevitable. Inescapable.

And perhaps entirely deserved.

Lastly of his protégé, L had to spare thought for Matt. The boy may not have been legal in his endeavors all the time, but he reminded L of Soichiro. His morality outshone his crimes, and L had a feeling that the red head knew that he would die for a friend, like L would.

Or for someone whom he considered a friend.

In mind, the boy was half plotter, half pragmatist, insightful bordering on the level of a mythical empath, and ironically, thought so far outside the square that his mind was a shape of it's own, even if his physical world was dominated by stripes, screens and lenses. Unambitious but not truly lazy, and kind to the core, L almost wished that Matt would take his place. The the title would finally belong to a good man, even if he was willing to break the rules every now and then. As if one of his famous striped shirts had bled together in the wash and shone his nature.

The bells were getting louder.

Watari, L did not know what would happen to. He had been an inventor, but could he go back to that? Whoever inherited the title would remind him too much of L, so that would not be his choice. One of nature's gentlemen, Watari would mourn the death of L for the rest of his life. L wanted to pray that it wouldn't harden the man, or make him cold, but he didn't think he had the right. The storm cornered L now – all he could see was endless gray.

It never occurred to L that Watari would go first, and, as always, make sure death was comfortable and safe for his ward. Not because no one knew his name or face, simply because for L, Watari always had been, and always would be. Mortality didn't enter into it.

The smiling old man did not belong to time.

That Watari had always transcended the snare-like nature of it was perhaps his most endearing quality. He was L's constant, if only for a while.

With gray dripping down around him, and the whites of his own eyes dulling to match it, the bells' bellow cut off. He knew it would only sound once more in his lifetime, when it tolled for him. Far, far away, perhaps further away than that voice had ever been before, someone called his pseudonym like an inquiry. Or a prosecution.

"Ryuzaki?"

L only watched him – Light would come to him, or go away. Either way, he would be forced to feel either irritation or rain, and by breaking his apathy, L would finally be at ease. A storm was not the place to feel nothing.

Light finally surrendered, or Kira did, and Light, alone, walked over. He began to speak – L simply would respond by talking, not really saying anything. If he spoke, some part of his mind said, scared, Kira would return.

"What are you doing out here?"

"The bells... the bells are so loud today..."

"Bells?"

This was not what L wanted. He had been granted a reprieve from that sick cancer, and the storm merely pelted him with the serenity which could only be found in the impact of silence. Of a comfortable silence between friends.

L wanted to speak. He wanted to say things, not to talk. He wanted to say what needed to be said, to say thank you and I hate you and you're evil and you're good and you're justice and I lost and I'm sorry and I'm so, so glad I'm not up here alone because I'm afraid of heights.

He wanted to call Light his friend, just once, when Kira was not around to smirk at it, so that he would feel something once L was gone.

But he didn't.

Saying that would be talking. For perhaps the first time, L truly spoke.

"It's sad, isn't it?"

"What?"

"It's almost time to say goodbye."

The poison overwhelmed, and the world faded to gray.


End file.
